The plucky Canadian teamed with partner Eric Radford for a solid, second-place finish in the pairs short program on Friday afternoon, but picked up enough placement points to vault Canada into top spot after the first day of Olympic team event action.

“Yaaaaayy, that was the plan,” she said.

Duhamel and Radford were good for nine placement points, Patrick Chan chipped in eight for a third-place finish in the men’s short program earlier on Friday and Canada leads the 10-nation race with 17 points.

The USA is in second with 14, followed by Japan and a squad of Olympic Athletes from Russia with 13 each.

Patrick Chan falls during the short program of the team event at the Olympics.Leah Hennel /
Postmedia

Women and dance teams skate their short programs Sunday, the field is then cut to five teams, and medals are awarded after the four long program performances.

“That was a good skate,” Duhamel said of the program that fetched 76.57 points, second only to Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov, Olympic Athletes from Russia, who rode a brilliant, flawless program to 80.92.

“Anything between 75 and 80 is a really high score for us, so we’re happy with that,” said Duhamel. “In particular, all the pair elements I think were very good; our twist, our throw, our death spiral, the lift, all the pair stuff, and we’ll look forward to a cleaner jump.”

Chan needs to clean up his act, too. He took two falls and managed just 81.66 points, but those hard landings were softened by a spotty overall performance from the men, who flipped and flopped all over the ice.

“You would think at the Olympics everybody is firing and ready and calm and confident. Sometimes you just can’t plan these sort of days,” said Chan, who figured the morning start time of the competition affected everybody negatively.

Japan’s Shoma Uno fell once but landed a quad-triple toe combo and took top spot with 103.25 points. Israel’s Alexei Bychenko was a surprising second after skating clean. Nathan Chen of the U.S. was fourth, again after an imperfect skate. He landed a quad-triple toe combo but popped another quad, fell on a triple Axel and finished with 80.61 points.

And Olympic Athlete from Russia Mikhail Kolyada was the worst of the top flight though, falling on both quad attempts and popping a triple Axel into a brutal single. He managed just 74.36 points and fell in behind Korean and Chinese skaters from the first flight.

Chan fell on an attempted quad toe off the top of the program and had to abandon the triple toe on the back half of the combination. It got worse. He landed a triple Lutz but popped a double toe in combination, then fell on a triple Axel as he lurched toward the end of the program.

“I just used the upper body way too much in all the jumps,” he said. “I felt pretty good actually today cardiovascularly. I felt really trained, in shape. All the spins were still good quality, fast, footwork was clean. I think that’s where the training shows, being able to pick yourself up, regaining the momentum and still managing to keep the quality on the other elements, other than the jumps.”

He got off the ice and was met by a wall of Canadian smiling faces, the beauty of the team event on full display.

“Yes, normally if it was just me by myself I would start analyzing it and being disappointed in the skate. But they were all so supportive. No need to apologize to them or anything. I think that’s the greatness of the team event. We always have to remember this isn’t about me, this is about all of us. Each discipline can support each other, even if some of us have mistakes or bad days.”

Duhamel and Radford talked about that team togetherness as well. In fact, they told one another not to look at their rather effusive teammate Scott Moir during the performance.

“We told each other, ignore Scott in that kiss and cry while we’re skating because I imagined that he was going to be crazy,” said Duhamel.

They would be right. This team is crazy for one another, having spent so much time together.

“We’re a strongly connected team,” said Radford. “There is just a great energy building around the entire team. I think it’s because we just come through our careers together. I lived with Scott over a summer when he was just a little annoying 10-year-old boy. He was like the annoying little brother. We’ve known each other so long and it’s this incredible story that we’ve been through and it’s sort of coming to its conclusion and we want to make it the best possible.”

That would involve a gold medal, and Canada’s best bet for top spot on the podium is most certainly in this event. They were second to the Russians in Sochi four years ago with many of these same skaters on the squad.

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